Dale Earnhardt, Jr, Cessna Citation C680 Latitude Crash
 

Article says all survived.

https://www.foxnews.com/auto/dale-ea...e-crash-nascar

Actually, he was a NASCAR driver - now retired from driving and does TV commentary for NASCAR races.
He's planning a one-off drive this month as a tribute to his late father Dale Sr. - who was killed in the Daytona 500 race about 20 years ago.

Please don't ask what NASCAR is.....

That has to be the first crash of a Latitude, not too many flying yet.
Lucky.
f

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Originally Posted by fleigle (Post 10546350)

That has to be the first crash of a Latitude, not too many flying yet.
Lucky.
f

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The 200th Latitude was rolled out in April of this year:

Quote:

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Textron Aviation rolls out 200th Latitude

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https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....61548face9.jpg

Video of the evacuation and fire originally posted by Scott Reis on Facebook:

https://www.tennessean.com/videos/sp...ee/2024751001/

It's a sport in North America where 250,000 people gather together at once to eat and drink as much beer as they can, and sometimes a car competition breaks out. It's called NASCAR - National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is/was a driver who still can't decide whether he wants to live or he likes money, thus calling himself "semi-retired".

If you are wondering, there is, or rather, was Dale Earnhardt, Sr., also a NASCAR driver who died in 2001 in a racing collision. Dale Earnhardt's full name is Ralph Dale Earnhardt, but he couldn't be called Ralph, because Ralph Earnhardt is his grandfather, also a NASCAR driver. Dale, Jr. also has a brother Kerry, who is also a NASCAR driver. And nephew Jeff, who, surprisingly, is also a NASCAR driver. And a sister Kelley who is NOT a NASCAR driver but owns a NASCAR team.

You get the picture. :cool:

From CNN.com... Is that what can be seen in the above photo?

It's a form of competitive driving in North America where competitors drive cars that look sporty but are in fact full-steel bodies with engines from Chevrolet 3100 and brakes made from milk bottle caps... and a 400g panel on the roof that is believed to prevent the 2-ton car from flipping over in a collision. (Don't laugh! They still believe eating before swimming will give you cramps...) The goal of the sport for drivers is to make as many left turns as they can, make at least $50 million per year and survive, and for the fans to get drunk and predict the number of crashes each race will have.

Left turns?
 

Sounds Socialist :
Lots of noise, going no-were fast, in circles!

Thanks for the information. I'm not familiar with the performance of the Cessna C680 Latitude, but the LDR figures you cited seem to be those for sea level standard day conditions. The elevation of the runway at Elizabethton, OA9, is about 1560 ft. MSL, and it could be reasonably anticipated that the outside air temperature at the time of the landing would have been in the 85-90° Fahrenheit range. My rough guesstimate of the LDR at those conditions would have been around 3800 ft. That would've been pretty tight. Anyway, I'm probably incorrect here, but did your LDR figures take into account the field elevation and air temperature?

On another note, would it have been possible that they landed at the wrong airport? Tri Cities Airport (KTRI) is about 13 miles NW of OA9, with a runway length of about 8,000 feet. The runway headings are similar, with the runway orientation at OA9 being 060/240 and the orientation at KTRI's main runway being 050/230. It's happened before, so I guess that it is a possibility. As something else to consider concerning this theory, KTRI is about 12 road miles from the Bristol Race track, and OA9 is about 14 road miles from the Race track.

Cheers,
Grog

In fact I used 2000 feet pressure altitude, 30 degrees temperature. Zero slope. A 1% down slope requires a factor of 1.17. Still not tight. 24 has a 0.8 down slope.

NTSB Senior Investigator Ralph Hicks just finished a media briefing at the accident site. His crew will be at the scene two to three days collecting perishable evidence. A preliminary report will be issued in about a week. The wreckage will be moved to Griffin, Georgia (possibly by Atlanta Air Recovery - Welcome!) for further analysis.

He said the plane was arriving at the non-tower controlled airport after a short 20 minute flight from North Carolina. Weather was good, wind calm.

Surveillance video showed that the plane touched down somewhere near the threshold, bounced twice and the right main gear collapsed. The initial landing was described as firm by the pilots and pax interviews were consistent with the video evidence.

There is a CVR which will be sent to the lab in DC. No FDR but non-volatile avionics data will give insight to the final flight path.

LDR without factoring C680A from the FPG
2000ft elevation / 0 Wind
MLM 27000 26000 25000 24000 22000 20000 19000lbs
35° C/ 95°F 2,740 2,700 2,630 2,570 2,500 2,350 2,200 2,120 ft

4100/1,67 = 2456 ft - > so anything below 23000lbs ish would be okay even if 135

I have just one landing in the Latitude, but about 2000 in the Sovereign who shares the same gear. The Sovereigns numbers are about 200ft LONGER than that of the Latitude, even at the MLM which is 475 lower in the Sov. The longer wings of the Latitude bring the Vref down a little (2-3 knots) and the aircraft has tremendous stopping power. We are homebased at a 3323ft LDA runway and we never had any issue regarding stopping - even at high weights.
That said, I thought the Latitude floats a tad more than the Sov on flare.

If there is a jet that is not a jet in this respect, its the C680 family. (although the Legacy 450/500 and the Challenger 300 don´t use a lot of runway...)
I sometimes fly a CJ3 into our homebase - it uses way more runway...

A link to today's NTSB briefing: https://www.pscp.tv/w/1dRKZmYPydVxB

The Latitude has 9 pax seats, FDR's are required with 10 or more seats under § 91.609(c)(1) so it's indeed not required.

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§ 91.609(c)

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https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/91.609

Private ops -> not required. Saves a lot of money not to have to buy and maintain it.

Yes, the Latitude has the same wing as the Sovereign+ which should have comparable landing performance.

One small correction, though: The FAR landing field length (factored) is a dispatch requirement and is typically not as limiting as actual conditions times 1.67. There is a specific supplement for it and it typically works out to about 1.5 times actual distance. This is because (I was told at FSI) Cessna used a slightly steeper approach and a firmer touchdown to come up with the raw landing distance for these numbers (which are not published unfactored) then applied a 1.67 factor but the total number is typically less than 1.67 times the published unfactored numbers. On other Citations this method and the respective AFM supplements was/were called parametric landing data. All this to say: Even more than 23000 pounds would have been ok under part 135. And certainly under part 91/91k there would have been no limit other than the structural MLW.

Right. Let's blame the passenger now.

Actually, the Sov+ is (acc. to the FPG´s) a tad worse than the Latitude...

For 200ft Elevation

Latitude 2,740 2,700 2,630 2,570 2,500 2,350 2,200 2,120 ft
Sovereign+ 2,860 2,820 2,750 2,680 2,610 2,530 2,450 2,290 ft
Sovereign 2,920 2,840 2,770 2,690 2,620 2,540 2,450 2,370

Vrefs on the + are 1 Knot higher than the Latitudes.

But all that is just academic I think, the question seems to be: why the bounce to a gear failure. The Sovereign is easy to fly IMHO, but: it runs out of elevator control close to Vref. Can´t say if that is the same with the Latitude.

I appreciate the information. It seems that operating in and out of Elizabethton (OA9) should have been a "piece of cake" for this airplane, and weather conditions at the time of the accident were pretty good and apparently not a factor. This also makes my theory about landing at the wrong airport pretty far-fetched. I think that I'll just be quiet, go sit in a corner and drink my beer.

Cheers,
Grog

fortunately people from both sides of the fence enjoy NASCAR...even the "crazies" from the Lib camp...but nice try anyway....

That "redneck" owns several businesses with hundreds of employees, and has a personal net worth near $200 million.

Are you actually a pilot? A 4,500' runway is more than adequate for a Latitude and all midsize business jets at 1,600' elevation, the DA at the accident time, and landing weight a 20 minute flight with three pax and a dog implies.. A "small prop aircraft" uses less than 1,500' of runway including 50' obstacle clearance in virtually all conditions.

The "brand new high performance jet" was four years old, and it's performance is not much more or less than all jets in its class.

Earnhardt's JR Motorsports flight department is affiliated with Hendrick Motorsports flight ops, and their fleet includes a GV, (2) ERJ 145s, and a Bell 430. Its professional standards are second to none.

The reasons for the hard landing and overrun will be like all such incidents, a combination of events that conspired to cause the mishap. One of them will not be "low time inexperienced pilots". How, exactly, are you privy to information that "a lot" of such pilots exist in 135/91 flight ops?

Stick to 787’s please
 

I hope the CCTV shows how far down the runway they were when the airplane stopped bouncing. This appears to be a really f..ked-up landing in a really nice, capable airplane on a dry runway in pretty decent VFR. And for all we know this crew and airplane may have landed at this airport before for other races. **** happens.

733 driver - you're putting too much effort into the analysis. Who cares which runway. The wind was calm (no good) it's a marginally long enough runway and every semi-smart corporate driver knows exactly what happened. They pranged it.